Welcome to Earth
by Wombatman9000
Summary: A new group of Spectrobe Masters find themselves on Earth.
1. Chapter 1

At the edge of an alien atmosphere, a space ship sat in its orbit. The ship was a pearly white with yellow accents along the wings. Blue lights traced their paths along the sides. It was from a distant star system where six planets (as well as two moons and an icy satellite) stood aligned against the forces of darkness. This system was one of many devoted to the preservation of the human race against the Krawl, parasitism creatures of the shadows. Their war has lasted centuries, with only a mysteries race of beings called Spectrobes tipping the balance. And now that war has reached a strange foreign system.

"They're a young race," Ajax commented. "One planet and almost two hundred individual nations. They aren't ready."

"Well what do you expect?" Jett replied. His voice was lighter and softer than Ajax's, another way in which he was more like their mother than their father. "Seven continents, five oceans, and a dozen unique environments. Deserts, forests, tundra, it's absurd really. And have you seen these other planets? Half of them are gas giants and the rest are too extreme even for the Krawl. I've never even seen atmospheres without without oxygen."

"So why would the Krawl come here?" Ajax asked. The star's a dwarf, the planets are too extreme, and the only habitable planet is apparently pretty extreme too."

"I honestly have no idea," Jett conceited. "First we need to figure out who's leading them now."

The statement brought back painful memories. The last leader of the Krawl, a Spectrobe Master named Krux, had killed their father Rallen after decades of war. Krux had fallen shortly thereafter to their mother Jeena, the current Commander of the Nanairo Planetary Patrol. But that was when they were little, ancient history for most. The twins had inherited both power and responsibility.

Ajax was a golden boy. With Rallen's fiery hair and the power to command Spectrobes, he was a natural candidate for battling the Krawl. Jett took after his mother, with pink hair the same color as cotton candy and a knack for technology. The only reason he could command Spectrobes was because of the Cosmolink. The Cosmolink was a legendary tool for Spectrobe masters of the Kaio system. It's functionality required a Spectrobe master and a trusted ally. Who better than a twin brother?

But sharing a birthday and a facial structure was as close to the same as they would ever get. Ajax was headstrong and overly trusting. Jett was quiet, calculating, and reserved. Basically, they were exactly like their parents.

"So are we heading down or what?" A third voice interjected. Talia. She was taller than either of the boys by at least a head and bore the same red hair that marked all Spectrobe masters. She was a Spectrobe master from the Linor system, the second to join in alliance with Nanairo after Kaio. She used a Prizmod, which was essentially a Cosmolink that only needed one user.

Incredibly, both of these tools had the capacity to store Spectrobes, weapons, medicine, anything and everything a warrior of light may need. "We can't go down yet," Jett replied. They had been in orbit for a few hours and everyone was getting antsy.

"There are several wars going on right now, we might be mistaken for an invading aircraft."

Ajax and Talia exchanged a glance. "Jett, we kind of are an invading aircraft," Ajax replied.

"Oh shut up," Jett said, throwing his hands up and turning back to the computer. "Fine, fine let's figure out a plan."

"Okay," Talia agreed. "Got any ideas?"

He only needed a moment to think of something. "Well we know from radiation scans that there are only a handful of Spectrobe fossils on the planet, and very few of them are buried. There's at least one Spectrobe master on the world as well. The Krawl are certainly going to try to find him or her, so we need to get to her first. I think we should send him or her a Prizmod and see where it goes from there."

"And what then?"

"Then we make a dramatic entrance and get a Spectrobe master to join us."

"I like it," Ajax agreed. "So where's this Spectrobe master?"

"The humans call it 'Florida.'"

But not too far away, on the edge of a portal in the asteroid belt, another assembly conspired. This group had as much interest in Earth as the Nanairo Planetary Patrol, but for less noble reasons. The assembly was of shadows, tangible and solid. Each was distinctly humanoid yet bore no clear physical features. Two stood together, each the size of a man, and one larger than the rest stood apart.

"They're searching for the master," one small shadow said in a raspy whine.

"And they have a head start," his partner continued in a melodious tone.

"Yes, they do," the largest shadow replied in a stern, clearly female voice. "But they have no idea what they're looking for."

The two smaller shadows glanced at each other, which was odd since they had neither faces nor eyes. "Do we even know what we're looking for?" one of them asked.

"Chaos," she replied quietly, and although she did not have lips, she was smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why do we have to go to a stupid museum?" Brent asked as he paid for his admission. "Twenty bucks is a lot."

"You and I both know it's your dad's money," Elena replied as she pushed through the turnstile. "And I like museums."

"Why? It's just a bunch of dusty old shit," he said, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. He looked like a generic stoner: his hair almost covered his eyes, he had a t-shirt from some obscure metal band, and despite having three belts his pants were almost around his ankles. Elena on the other hand never smoked a day in her life. She liked fantasy novels and science fiction. But beyond that, she liked money. And money was something Brent's family had in excess.

"Well this 'dusty old shit' is amazing," she replied as she tried to show him around. "Where do you want to go first? Egyptian or Japanese history?"

"Can we go to neither?" Brent asked, regretting his decision to go with her.

"Japanese it is!" Elena decreed as she took his and and dragged him to the Japanese exhibits.

Elena didn't really come for herself. There was really nothing here that she could learn. She dragged Brent along so he could learn something. She had a naïve hope that he would actually take an interest in something here so they could discuss something other than drugs and sex.

She was a fireball. With a killer smile and a mop of red hair, she could make any boy do whatever she wanted. Whether it was a museum trip of a debutant ball, all she had to do was ask and it was hers. Capitalist, nihilist, opportunist.

"This is a statue of a komainu," she explained. Hopefully she'd be able to land a job as tour guide, but for now she hoped to educate her boyfriend. "It's a Japanese creature, part lion and part dog. They're basically watchdogs."

The statue was barely more than a foot tall, it was a stoney grey sculpture made from only one rock. Its ears twisted around toward its back and its face looked closer to a clown than a dog. Swirling patterns etched their ways across its body, from face to rump. A smirk tore across Brent's face when he realized where he saw it before. "Wasn't there one of these guys in a Godzilla movie?" And there was his weakness: kaiju movies. Anything involving giant monsters tearing apart cities got his blood pressure up.

"That's right, once there was a giant komainu named King Caesar. He protected a family in a Godzilla movie. If you liked that, maybe you'll like the Egyptian exhibit."

For some reason the Egyptian exhibit was right next to the Japanese exhibit, so they didn't have to walk very far before they were surrounded by hieroglyphs and cat statues. "What's with all the cats?"

"They were kind of like komainu," Elena explained. "They protect people from evil spirits. The Egyptians had a cat goddess named Bastet, she protects children and mothers in particular."

"Trippy," he said absently as he observed the hieroglyphs. "Why's the bird dude fighting a big snake?"

She almost laughed at the question. "The bird guy is Ra, he's the sun. He represents order. The snake is Apophis, he's chaos incarnate. They fight every night in the underworld when Apophis tries to eat him."

"Sick," was the best response she could get from him. "Can we go now?"

"It's been ten minutes," she answered.

"Exactly, it's been a whole ten minutes."

They would have continued fighting had an explosion not torn through the Roman and Chinese exhibits. Debris swept through the air, caking everything in a fine layer of dust. Countless artifacts from around the world were lost in the explosion, but something new found itself in the museum.

In the center of the new crater sat a small metal object, no bigger then a Nintendo DS. It glimmered in the sunlight that now shined down into the room. Nobody was injured, nobody was even around, so Elena took it upon herself to see what had happened. Brent trailer behind her, covered in dust and grime. The debris had barely touched her at all, not a single strand of her orange hair was besmirched.

The object in the crater began beeping with a faint blue light pulsing inside. It couldn't have been a meteor, that was obvious. Maybe a satellite or government drone? When she reached out to grab it, the device started beeping louder. She found that it could be opened like a flip phone. The screen inside displayed her solar system, but the labels were in a language she didn't understand. It looked like a cross between Hebrew and Japanese. She spoke English, French, Arabic, and Latin, but this was something new to her.

Sirens blared off in the distance, so Elena tucked the device in her backpack and dragged a speechless Brent to the door. Maybe he was scared or in shock, but she couldn't concern herself with that, this could have been a terrorist attack or something. If she'd just stolen a weapon, she needed to get out of there.

But something told her it was more than just a terrorist attack.

* * *

Elena wasn't the only one who knew about the explosion. Far away in Nellis Air Force Base, a team of scientists and soldiers observed the situation.

"It's launched something, sir," the colonel stated as he watched the screen. It showed the alien ship in orbit around the Earth, far beyond where any satellites lie. "It appears to have crash landed somewhere in north Florida."

"Someone needs to alert the President," a lieutenant interjected. "This thing has been in orbit for hours and now they've launched something at us. He needs to know."

The chief scientist, a thin, sickly old man named Dr. Snowell, ignored the lieutenant. "Gentlemen, situations like this are precisely why we are here in the first place. Our old friends have finally returned and we've even given two options. We can let the military ruin any chances of diplomacy we have, or we can greet them as the old allies they are. Either choice we make will change the world, but only one will allow us to keep the world. And I fully intend to keep Earth around as long as possible.

Deep in the military base Snowell's prized possessions lie forever asleep. Two humans, dead for decades, were cryogenically frozen. They had been found near a town named Roswell, in the wreckage of their ship. One male, one female. The red haired girl had died on impact and the brunette boy of his wounds shortly after. But they weren't the only organisms on the ship.

Whatever had attacked them had left a sample. Just a few cells, something very similar to fungus. Whatever it was, it was adaptive. It had maintained growth in every environment in which it had been placed, always taking on the qualities of its surroundings. In cold environments, it created icy scales. In soil, it started growing stones.

The ship's computers used a language very strange to Earth, but from what could be translated it was gathered that humans across the galaxy had been at war with this species from millennia. The people on the ship had come from a star system far away called Giorno before these creatures destroyed it.

When they landed on Earth, they brought a lot to it. Their technology had birthed modern space flight and avionics. Nellis researchers had barely scratched the surface before things like wormholes and portals were discovered, all before Earth's time.

But one things continued to bother Snowell. Despite every advance they made, they were still no closer to understanding the secrets of the fossils they found. As if that weren't enough, they continually failed to activate the device called the "Prizmod" that they found with the girl.

And now that their friends had returned, Snowell intended to get his answers.


	3. Chapter 3

"What the hell was that?" Brent asked when they were back at Elena's house. It was a simple, open floor plan home. Three bedrooms, four bathrooms, not quite big enough for her. Nobody was home so they could talk openly.

"I'm not really sure," Elena replied as she tried her hardest to be less confused. She clutched the device like her life depended on it. Maybe it did. She couldn't fathom why she suddenly wanted to go back and steal the komainu statues. Nor did she understand her sudden fear of what might be lurking in random shadows. The reporter on the TV was explaining that the explosion at the museum was under investigation and that nobody was hurt. Apparently only a few artifacts were damaged, and only three exhibits would need repairs.

"Why do you have that thing?" Brent asked when he noticed the silvery device. "Is that what caused it?"

When he reached for it she jerked away. "I don't know. I just... I just wanted to take it. I don't know why."

"Dude, the police," he began, as all stoners do, with intense paranoia. "The police are gonna be all over her. We're gonna be in so much trouble."

"No we aren't, " she promised, trying to calm him down. "Nobody saw me take it and nobody's going to miss it. Just go home now. Smoke a joint, calm down, you'll be fine."

He was still scared, but he left without another word. She locked the door and went to her room, where she locked yet another door.

The device opened up unbidden, again displaying the solar system but instead as a hologram. Nothing was to scale, otherwise it would have taken up her entire room, but it certainly got the point across. It showed nothing bey don the asteroid belt, but resting in it was some kind of wormhole. At it's mouth was a massive ship of black steel and iron. Black tornadoes surrounded it as if in orbit.

Closet to Earth, orbiting slightly closer than the moon, was a craft the color of polished marble. It had yellow accents and lights that danced up the sides.

Even though Elena couldn't read the labels, it was obvious which was the good guy here. Just like in old western movies: the good guy has a white hat and the bad guy has a black hat.

"Show Florida," she commanded the device. Maybe it was voice activated? Worth a shot.

The solar system faded as the screen ran a series of symbols and letters. Eventually it settled on English characters. The translation was rough, and probably off the internet, but it said, "Incoming massage."

This thing was worse than Siri. Elena still knew it meant "message," so she said, "Open the message."

A pre-recorded message opened. It showed three people in strange clothing on what appeared to be a space ship. Two boys and a girl were visible. The boys were obviously related, they were identical aside from the fact that one boy was a redhead and the other had pink hair. The girl had the same shade of fire on her head, but was clearly taller than either boy.

The pink haired boy did all the talking. He was thinner and paler than his brother, cuter but not as handsome despite the nearly identical faces. The language they spoke sounded like very primitive Latin mixed with Gaelic, but luckily there'p were poorly translated subtitles. It came out something like this:

"Hello, we are officers of the Nanairo Planetary Patrol. My name is Jett and this is my brother Ajax and our friend Talia. We come from a distant star system in pursuit of a foe called the Krawl. Our main weapons against them are creature called Spectrobes. Certain people have the potential to awaken them from fossils and train them. The device you found is called a "Prizmod." It will allow you to control Spectrobes that you awaken.

"We sent it to you because we need your help to protect your world from the Krawl. Once this message has played through, a beacon will be sent to our ship. You'll be picked up not long after. You may not be a warrior or a genius or a hero, but you're a Spectrobe Master and that's all we ask of you. You have something invested in this planet whether it's a lover or a sister or a friend. Now you have to defend it. We'll see you soon."

The message concluded and a sort of home screen popped up. The English was getting better and it seemed like the Prizmod had internet access.

She scrolled through it using her finger as she pondered the message. Maybe it was all an elaborate prank? The message certainly seemed unrehearsed. But that was impossible, just like aliens and spaceships and whatever the hell a Spectrobe was.

As she went through the device she found an "inventory." When she opened it there was only one thing in it, a komapod. A hologram of it appeared and she realized immediately what it was.

"Komainu? How? What? When?" Before her eyes the fossil materialized. Somehow the Prizmod had stolen it from the museum.

Before she could even put down the statue, more words appeared on the screen. "Wake up," she read aloud.

In a flash of blinding light, the komainu did exactly that. Where there had once been a fossil now sat a red watchdog with blue swirls from its face to its rump. It waddled over to Elena and nuzzled her gently, like a baby cub to his mother.

"I just woke up a fossil. I have a pet komainu. I'm a Spectrobe Master." Each statement took her breath away, which was bad because she liked breathing. She was one weird thing away from an asthma attack. The Japanese fairy tale creature looked at her strangely, tilting its head. Did it understand her? "Okay, okay. My name is Elena. and you're an ancient Japanese alien lion-dog. Do you have a name?"

It stared blankly at her as if to say, "Wow. Much Spectrobe. So Elena. Many Japanese. Very alien." But instead it said nothing.

"Okay, how's Caesar sound?" She said it as the traditional Latin kai-zar instead of the anglicized see-zer.

He seemed to like it because be did a backflip. Before she could try to ask why he did a backflip, a deafening sound invaded her ears. It was like a jet engine crossed with a giant hummingbird. But then it was silent.

She looked out the window and saw the white ship from the hologram sitting in the middle of her cul-de-sac. It was bigger than she expected, probably had two floors. And it had almost certainly invaded US airspace. Unless the dismounting people had student visas, there was going to be trouble.

* * *

"The Spectrobe Masters have landed," one shadow reported in a thin, whiny voice. "They've found the planet's master.

The other shadow interrupted, "I followed a faint Krawl signal to the planet. I could not locate the one which you seek, but I did find a small sample in a place called Nellis. It's from Giorno."

If this shocked their mistress she didn't show it. Instead of appearing as a tangible shadow, she was in her human form. Blue patterns traced their ways up her pitch black skin and ice tangled in her flesh. "Tell me more," she quietly commanded. She did not need to speak loudly to inspire fear, nor did she need to inspire fear in her own shadows.

The deep voiced shadow continued, "Long ago, a ship from Giorno crashed at a place called Roswell. It held the Spectrobe Master you battled, his wife, and a faint Krawl presence that likely caused the crash."

She loosed a cackle that could shatter bones. "So poor old Aldous died in Nanairo and Ouran never even got there. A fitting, if unexpected boon. What intelligence have we gathered of the Spectrobe Masters?"

The shrill one spoke again. "The children of Rallen, twin boys. Is a Spectrobe Master, one is not. They fight using the Cosmolink. They have a personal rivalry we can use against them. Talia, a Master from Lindor is their companion. She's a Flash specialist. The girl they found has only awoken a single komainu. She's clever and calculating, but opportunistic. She would sell them all down the river if we make her a better offer."

"Excellent," the mistress replied, needing only a second to figure out what had to be done. "One of you take our offer to the girl at your earliest opportunity. Make sure she understands why she should join the winning side. Offer her control of the Earth, don't tell her what will happen to its population. And you, go to this 'Nellis' and cripple them. Bring back any technology that will aid our cause. Take as many Krawl as you need and leave no survivors.

The two shadows dissipated into the vacuum of space and a swarm of black vortices emerged from the ship. Soon the Earth would tremble beneath the power of the Krawl. Soon they would all fear her name: Nyx.


	4. Chapter 4

So it turned out the aliens weren't all that alien. Even though she knew they were human, Elena still sort of expected them to be frightening. The only thing about any of them that was scary was how they dressed. They all wore black coats and pants with white metal spaulders, boots, and gloves. The two boys were clearly twins, the only difference being that one was built heavily and had fiery red hair, whereas the other was scrawnier and had pink hair.

The girl had darker skin, on Earth she might have been considered black. Elena somehow doubted that aliens cared about skin color. But clearly hair color was different, because usually on Earth black people don't have orange hair.

She waltzed up the walkway of the ship, King Caesar trailing at her feet. It was bigger than she expected, occupying the entire cul-de-sac. It was also more wounded than she thought, with scratches and dents all over.

The humans on the walkway were clearly surprised at how collected Elena was. Here she was, an ordinary girl being dragged into an interplanetary war with monsters made of darkness. She looked like she was made for this, and she knew that she had to act like she was.

She walked right passed the aliens and onto the ship. When they stared at her wordlessly she said, "Well? The Army is going to be here soon, so we outta get going."

The ship walls were curved like the inside of an egg shell. Blue lights traced their way along black lines for some reason. There were three seats lining each wall and two before the controls in the cockpit. King Caesar took a seat on the right. There was a pod shaped elevator that almost certainly led to a bottom floor and a similar pod that looked like it might be some kind of robotic doctor.

The red haired boy and the girl ran toward the controls and the pink haired one stopped at Elena.

"Arm," he commanded.

"Arm?" she asked. It took her a moment to realize that he probably didn't speak any English. He said it again so she extended her arm, Prizmod in hand. He took the Prizmod and started pressing hologram buttons. He placed it on her forearm and a series of hologram hexagons extended, tracing along the shape go her body until her grunge clothes had been replaced by the same armor and coat he wore. The Prizmod was now stuck in a slot on the vambrace of the glove, presumably for easy access later.

"It'll turn into a watch when you need it to," he said. "I'm Jett, by the way. They're Ajax and Talia," he explained as he pointed to his companions.

"So now you speak English?" she asked, teasingly. She wasn't dumb enough not to notice that his words didn't match up with his month's movements. Obviously he was using a translator and obviously he was going to tell her all about it.

"Actually no, I'm speaking Nanairan. I activated the translator in your Prizmod," he explained with a smile.

Elena could feel the ship begin go float. "We have jets incoming," Ajax shouted from the cockpit. "Everyone buckle up."

Jett pulled Elena to the curved wall where he took a seat on the far left, so when Elena sat she was between him and the komainu. The ship was off like a bullet, and before she knew it they were in orbit. It was faster than any roller coaster she had ever been on, and stranger than video game she could play.

"Sorry about that," Jett offered as he unbuckled and stood back up. "He really likes speed."

Elena stayed in her seat, just in case Ajax decided to go fast again. "So are you all siblings?"

"Ajax is my twin brother. Talia is from another star system entirely."

"And how many star systems are there?" Elena asked. She needed as much information as possible before she could commit to helping these people.

"Well there's Nanairo where Ajax and I are from. Talia is from Lindor. Kaio is a strong ally, they actually invented Cosmolink technology. And then Kagero is being repopulated. Plus there's Hyoga, an orphan planet."

"Orphan planet? What happened to its star?"

He was going to speak, but then held his tongue. He extended a hand and a hologram appeared. The words were all in Nanairan, and as he pressed each one the image changed. When it was finished it showed a two planets and a star. "This planet here is Hyoga. It used to be warm and tropical, a lot like Earth. When the Krawl came they destroyed its companion planet, whose name has been lost to us. Instead of destroying Hyoga, they turned it into a breeding ground to produce more Krawl. You have to understand, the Krawl are creatures of darkness. They don't like light, so they have no qualms about destroying stars." The hologram changed as the second planet collapsed on itself and a stream of purple shadows covered the sun. When the sun evaporated, Hyoga's green surface turned a pale blue. "My father destroyed the breeding base on Hyoga so we could colonize it. It's frozen, but we managed to colonize some areas.

"So you're saying these things can eat stars?" Elena asked, suddenly feeling a lot more skeptical about this entire endeavor.

"They can," he replied solemnly. His voice was too high pitched for such a serious discussion. "They're a silicon based fungal parasite. We believe they evolved on an orphan planet, or perhaps an ocean world. We know for a fact that ultraviolet radiation from suns hurts them. We also know how to fight them." The Cosmolink on his wrist glowed for an instant and suddenly a massive green monster stood beside him. It had horns like swords and paws big enough to squash Elena in one stroke. But what was most surprising was the spiked ball it had for a tail.

And in another flash, it returned to the Cosmolink. Instead of acting scared or confused, Elena asked the first question to enter her mind. "So you have a Prizmod too?"

"No, actually I can't use a Prizmod. This is called a Cosmolink. It's the same thing, but it splits into two parts to be shared between a Spectrobe master and a trusted friend. Ajax is the master, not me."

"Is it a redhead thing?" Elena asked.

"Actually it is. Spectrobe masters always have orange hair, and we don't really know why."

"So let me get this straight," Elena said as she unbuckled and stood up. "The only things stoping evil fungus from eating my planet is a team of alien redheads with some fancy monsters."

"That's correct," he said with a smile.

"When do we start?"

"Right now," Ajax interrupted. Elena hadn't even noticed that they landed. "We've got Krawl readings from the inside. Talia is calibrating the dynaliums."

"Dynalium?" Elena asked.

"A light based weapon. It's powered by sunlight," Jett explained. "They're the main reason we've had a fighting chance in this war."

"I thought that was the Spectrobes?" she replied half teasingly.

"One in every million humans is a Spectrobe master. We don't have enough to fight a war on this scale."

"Let's go," Talia said as she handed each of them large, black rifles with blue, red, and green crystals on the edge. It was heavier than Elena expected, but she wasn't about to complain.

"Wait, where are we?" she asked, momentarily confused that she wasn't in Florida.

"The official name is Nellis Air Force Base," the pink haired boy replied. "Most people call it Area 51."

* * *

Alarms blared in his ears and smoke filled his nostrils. Snowell couldn't understand what was happening. The entire east half of the facility had been destroyed as black vortexes crashed down. Satellite and cellular communication had been taken down before the attack even began. Lights flickered ominously as the fire spread to electrical equipment.

The foe was a strange one. It was clearly not of this world. Instead of hands it had tentacles and where it there should have been legs it was just a blob. Red and black patterns decorated its skin and its head was nearly a perfect circle.

It probed around the room, stalking the soldiers hiding under desks and tables. One by one they fell. A thousand bullets could have been fired at the creature and a thousand bullets would have been wasted. So Snowell did the only reasonable things.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Through hallways and corridors, passed laboratories and offices. He made it to the Roswell Room, easily the most secure room in the building.

A three feet thick steel door kept the outside away from the secret history of Roswell. One single room contained the crashed ship, both alien bodies, and the strange fungal substance. Prototype weapons and engines littered the room, none of which could save him.

The vial containing the strange fungus began to shake violently, as if sensing his brethren nearby. The vial fell from the table and shattered, allowing the material within to climb out. It began crawling toward Snowell, just as a pounding began on the door.

One knock.

Two knocks.

Three knocks.

Each knock put another dent in the door, and the fourth took it off its hinges. Through the doorway walked a shadow, amorphous and shapeless. It seemed to be speaking, but it's voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

The fungus from the vial crawled onto the doctors hand. It traced its way along varicose veins and liver spots until it reached his face. He was simply too afraid to try to remove it, and soon it reached his face. He couldn't breathe under the creature. But then, after a noise came from the shadow, the creature removed itself and retreated.

Then the shadow sprang onto the elderly doctor. It landed on his face and covered his mouth, as if trying to get inside. What Snowell couldn't realize was, the shadow was trying to get inside. It crawled over his tongue and down his throat, fusing more and more with the doctor with each moment. Soon the shadow was gone, absorbed by Snowell. But he wasn't Snowell anymore.

His mind had been shattered and corrupted by the Krawl's influence. Where he once was a man of science and righteousness, he was now a creature, half shadow and half human, who would seek only his own gain.

He was not just a man anymore. He was a High Krawl.


	5. Chapter 5

Elena wasn't particularly good at violence. She was very good at making other people commit violence, but doing it herself was a less than inviting task. In the past she might have made Brent do it for her, but when an alien gun materialized in her hand and giant monsters appeared from thin air, she found that she was exceptionally good at being violent.

The room was a mess. Parts of the ceiling were missing, walls were collapsed, desks were overturned and bodies were everywhere. But the corpses didn't scare Elena. What scared her were the creatures.

They were taller than her by a at least a meter, and instead of hands they had what appeared to be clawed tentacles. They had a blob instead of feet, which made them slower but sturdier. Instead of a face they had black and red patterns etched across their heads, as well as the rest of their bodies. There were at least a few dozen of them, against four humans.

The Spectrobes did most of the fighting. King Caesar retreated into Elena's Prizmod, but Talia, Jett, and Ajax each had their own Spectrobes to command.

Jett and his Spikan fought like they were connected. Spikan slashed with his tail to knock the foe away, and Jett would complement it with a shot from his dynalium.

Ajax took the more direct approach, relying on speed and ferocity to defeat his foes. He was more agile than he looked, able to jump and leap out of the way of the creature's attack. His companion was a Zozane, a yellow leopard-like creature that was able to rotate so quickly the friction created small bolts of lightning. Instead of a dynalium, Ajax used a sword to cut down the Krawl. He would slash and stab at the creatures, and when one was off balance his Zozane would roll in and finish the job.

Talia had the most interesting technique of them all. Her Spectrobe was a Rydrake, Evolved as opposed to Adult like the others. She sat on its back like it was a horse and rode it across the room, letting its wings tear down Krawl at her flank while she sniped stragglers with her dynalium.

Elena spent the duration of the fight behind Jett, firing potshots while the others did the real fighting. She may have killed five of them, which isn't bad for someone without a fighting Spectrobe.

The battle lasted only a few minutes, no more than five, but at the end Elena was thoroughly exhausted. She wanted to go home and take a bath and wipe the dirt and grim off her skin. She wanted to sleep for a year and forget the smell of bloody corpses and disintegrating Krawl. They didn't smell like blood or rot, more like boiled cabbage or burnt ramen.

All the Spectrobes had disappeared, as had all their weapons. Elena knew her dynalium went into her Prizmod, and she wondered what else was in there. A sword? Food? Medicine?

"Ajax, you and Talia take the East Wing and clear out any remaining Krawl," Jett ordered. Suddenly he seemed like so much more than the awkward kid from the spaceship. He was suddenly in control of an insane situation, giving orders in a voice befitting a Disney princess rather than a soldier. But they obeyed his orders without question. "Elena and I will go to the West Wing to find the fossil and clear out any stragglers. I'll contact you when we're finished."

Ajax nodded and he left with Talia without a word. They jogged down the hall, their Spectrobes now returned to their respective Cosmolink and Prizmod. King Caesar had returned, but became much sadder at the sight of human corpses.

"Should we bury them?" Elena asked, regarding the bodies.

"Bury?" Jetty asked, already walking to the West Wing.

"Yeah. On Earth we usually bury our dead."

"Why?" he asked. He wasn't trying to be rude, he just didn't understand.

"It's a sign of respect. Ancient cultures thought that for a person to get to the afterlife they had to be buried."

"In Nanairo we burn bodies and turn their ashes into artificial reefs. Kollin has massive oceans, and most of our reefs are damaged. Kind of like Earth in that regard. Now come on, we need to find that fossil."

"Fossil?" Elena asked, mining for more information.

"Remember how you woke Komainu from a fossil? Well that's how all Spectrobes are awakened. And there's one here," Jett explained.

"And how do we find it?"

"Ask Komainu. He can find it."

Elena looked at him skeptically. But it wasn't exactly the strangest thing to happen that day. "King Caesar," she said, gaining the creature's attention. "Find the fossil."

His face lit up with a smile and he began sniffing around the floor of the hallway, strangely comical in contrast to the ominous flickering of the lights. He turned around to face Elena and started bouncing excitedly. Then he ran off down the hall.

They followed him for what felt like miles. They were probably underground now, given the slope of the floor. Then they found a massive steel door that had been knocked in. Inside was every conspiracy theory wrapped into one convenient storage room.

A dozen prototype weapons lay scattered across the room, besides overturned tables and what may or may not be damaged engines. On the far right there was a damaged spaceship, very similar to the one Jett used. On the left there were two tanks of a strange liquid, and in the liquid were two humans.

They were floating in some kind of stasis, one male and one female. The man had red hair, which made Elena assume that he too was a Spectrobe master. Jett made the same assumption, because his mouth was agape in.

"Were they your friends?" Elena asked.

"This is Ouran," he explained, not really answering her question.

"No way," Ajax interjected. "I though he didn't escape Giorna."

"It looks like he did. Guess he didn't make it as far as he had hoped," Talia observed.

"Or maybe he wanted to come here," Jett suggested. Maybe he had hoped to use something here to face the Krawl."

"But where's his-"

"-Prizmod," a deep, raspy voice finished. A tall, gaunt figure emerged from behind the cryotanks. His appearance made King Caesar leap back into Elena's Prizmod. His skin was an inhuman shade of grey, like wet clay. His hair, which may have once been white, was now a strange shade of green. Even stranger, he had green tattoos tracing up and down his body, swirling and twisting along his skin. "It's right here," he revealed the device in his hand before dropping it to the ground. With a single stomp, he shattered the Prizmod into a dozen pieces, shards of glass littering the floor.

"Who are you?" Ajax demanded.

"Tell me, young Spectrobe Masters. How many Krawl have you faced? A hundred? A thousand? How many of them were High Krawl?"

"My father killed the last High Krawl," Jett replied. "You remember of Krux, right? With his death, the High Krawl were no more."

"Foolish boy," the creature replied with a smile of knives. "You've never been outside your own star system until today, how would you know anything about High Krawl?"

"What's a High Krawl?" Elena quietly asked Talia.

"It's what we call a human whose been fused with a powerful Krawl. We thought they were all dead."

Despite their hushed tones, the man who was once Snowell heard them. "Haven't you been listening? Do you really doubt me? Come, then! Let's see what you children are really capable of."

For someone who could sound big and strong, the High Krawl was incredibly weak. Despite the dark power flowing through his veins, he was still a frail old man. He may have talked a big game, but his bite was weaker than his bark.

First, Talia and her Rydrake went for a direct attack. She probably thought that he would fall immediately to a Flash property Spectrobe. She didn't realize that he was an Aurora Krawl, against which Flash is weak. He batted them to the side with one hand.

Jett and Ajax worked at a team, Spikan covering them as they fired their Dynaliums and Zozane committing to a full frontal assault. Snowell didn't last more than a minute against them.

The battle was over quickly, the only casualty being Talia's pride. Snowell had no final words, no deathbed monologue about how he would have his revenge. He simply dissipated into black dust and scattered across the floor.

"Alright," Jett said as the adult Spectrobes returned to the Cosmolink. "Let's take a full inventory. If anything looks important, we probably need it. Elena, I want you to look in their computers and see what you can find. When you finish, do a full file transfer to you Prizmod just in case you missed something."

The first thing she did was look for a search bar. When she finally found one, she ran a search of the base's Intranet. She found that the people in the cryogenic chambers were found at Roswell, that their ship was what fueled American innovation for half a century, giving the world the Silicon Age, and that their weapons were too advanced to even try reverse engineering. There was nothing about Krawl, Spectrobes, or the Nanairo Planetary Patrol.

"Jett, you aren't gonna believe this," Ajax shouted. "I think I just found a Dracopod."


End file.
